Slobodan Milosevic died during his trial at the UN's International War Crimes Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague. He was 64. He stood accused of war crimes in Bosnia- Herzegovina, Croatia and Kosovo. Whatever the legitimacy of the victors justice represented by the Tribunal, a poor substitute for a true international court, there is no doubt of his guilt. The evidence is overwhelming. He was the butcher of the Balkans. Geoff Ryan and Alan Thornett look at his history in the Balkans.

Milosevic's role remains controversial on the left; because it involves controversies about the role and nature of Stalinism, the causes of its collapse, and the right of selfdetermination of nations.

It also raises the issue of whether the unity of Yugoslavia could have been preserved and who was principally responsible for its destruction.

The obituary of Milosevic in Socialist Worker (18.3.06) raised such controversies. It makes no significant distinction between the role of Milosevic in the break up of Yugoslavia and that of Franjo Tudjman of Croatia and even Alija Izetbegovic of Bosnia- Herzegovina.

It even makes no distinction between them in terms of war crimes - which in the case of Izetbegovic is scandalous.

Yugoslavia was a federation comprising six Federal Republics: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia. There were two Autonomous Provinces, Vojvodina (majority Hungarian population) and Kosova (80 per cent Albanian) - both within the Serb Republic.

There was a history of both Serb and Croatian nationalism prior and during the world war two. This declined in the post-war period under Tito (a Croat) to the extent that many people thought of themselves as Yugoslav.

Milosevic came to prominence in the 1980s through the Communist Party ranks in Serbia and learned his politics in the Belgrade bureaucracy in the latter years of Tito's rule.

He was pivotal in the breakup of Yugoslavia, and carries the principal responsibility for the carnage involved. He orchestrated the resurgence of Greater Serbian nationalism that led to slaughter on a mass scale.

The internal social and economic crisis that brought down Stalinism in the Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, existed in full force in Yugoslavia. This caused tensions between the Republics and forced Yugoslavia into damaging arrangements with the IMF. Milosevic dealt with the crisis like many of his top functionaries by turning to nationalism.

After Tito's death in 1980, Yugoslavia could only be held together by a guarantee against the rise of Serbia into the dominant position it held in the pre-war period.

This meant strengthening, rather than weakening, the relatively progressive 1974 constitution - which had devolved power and autonomy to the constituent Republics.

Multinational state

It defined Yugoslavia as a multinational state in which no single nationality could claim a majority. This was the basis on which the Federation coexisted.

This coexistence, however, was soon to come under pressure from Serb nationalism. In the spring of 1981, Kosovar Albanian demonstrators in Pristina, campaigning for Kosova to be promoted to the status of a Federal Republic, were savagely attacked by Serbian police.

In 1987, Milosevic, now Serbian party boss and increasingly a nationalist demagogue, addressed a rally of Serbs in Kosova and made his infamous "no one should dare to beat you" speech. He was lauded by the Serbs and came away as de facto Serb president in waiting.

Six months later Milosevic was indeed President of Serbia - and the direction he was taking was unmistakable. In 1989 even the limited autonomy enjoyed by Kosova and Voijvodina as Autonomous Provinces was abolished and they were annexed by Serbia.

The de facto absorption of Montenegro quickly followed. Milosevic had torn up the 1974 constitution and sought to replace it with a highly centralised state dominated by Serbia.

The consequences for the Federation were absolutely clear. The more dominant Serbia became the less other nationalities were prepared to stay within it.

Milosevic now launched his Greater Serbia project - the creation of a common mono-ethnic state for all the Serbs, then spread across the various Republics.

This concept was supported by all political parties in Serbia and could only be achieved by the break-up of Yugoslavia and the annexation of at least a third of Croatia and two thirds of Bosnia-Herzegovina - with the ethnic cleansing of non- Serbs from those territories.

Once Kosova, Voijvodina and Montenegro were swallowed up, resistance to the advance of Greater Serbia project fell to the newly elected governments of Slovenia and Croatia. They tried to negotiate acceptable terms to stay in the Federation; proposing that it take the form of "a free union of democratic states" - proposals which were supported by Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia.

Milosevic rejected this and all subsequent proposals along these lines.

In December 1990 Slovenia voted in a referendum to secede, though it did not act at that stage. Slovenia was increasingly dragging Croatia with it towards independence.

Franjo Tudjman was now President of Croatia. He was a Stalinist bureaucrat turned Croatian nationalist, later to have war crimes on his hands. In March 1991 the Serbs of the Krajina region of Croatia, in what was claimed to be a spontaneous uprising, took over the region and declared it an independent state. The uprising was led by Serb nationalist strongman Milan Babic. They named it the Autonomous Province of Krajina, later Republika Srpska Krajina.

The uprising had the full backing of Milosevic, and it was armed and supported by the Yugoslav National Army (JNA). Federal authority was collapsing and the JNA was already acting under Serbian control.

This was a body-blow to the unity of Yugoslavia and a massive challenge to Croatia - which was split wide open. Tudjman had no army to resist the JNA and sought to stabilise the situation by diplomacy.

In any case he had his own agenda for carving up theregion (i.e. Bosnia- Herzegovina) in favour of a Greater Croatia once he was pushed towards independence. Milosevic and Tudjman concluded that Yugoslavia was now effectively finished, and that three, or more, successor states would eventually emerge. The issue now was how they would each carve out their own ethnic states to the detriment of Bosnia.

European Community (EC) mediator Lord Carrington reported "When I first talked to Presidents Milosevic and Tudjman, it was quite clear that both of them had a solution which was mutually satisfactory, which was that they were going to carve up Bosnia between them".

In April Milosevic recognised the Krajina as a separate state. Ultra-nationalist Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic, called for "an armed force of the Serbian People to be set up throughout the Serbs lands of Yugoslavia". He now articulated the Greater Serbian project even more clearly than his mentor Milosevic. Serbian forces were now occupying a quarter of Croatia, and expanding. It was undeclared war, although Tudjman was reluctant to recognise such reality given the military imbalance he faced. On May 3, he belatedly concluded that war was probably unavoidable.

On May 25, Slovenia and Croatia simultaneously declared independence. The EC opposed the declaration - which was Western policy at that stage. Two days later the JNA invaded Slovenia to prevent the implementation of the declaration.

The JNA were forced to abandon the invasion after 10 days by both international pressure and surprisingly strong Slovenian resistance. Ultimately Slovenia could not have defended itself, but Milosevic had limited interest in Slovenia since it had a negligible Serb population.

Ethnic cleansing

In August, Serb forces carried out the first ethnic cleansing of the war in the Krajina village of Kijevo - a pocket of Croat population surrounded by Serb-held territory. Soon after Babic announced that the Krajina Serb paramilitary forces had fused with the JNA.

In early September, the Croatian city of Vukovar (43 per cent Croat and 37 per cent Serb) was shelled by Serbian irregulars with heavyweapons supplied by the JNA. Tudjman responded by laying siege to JNA barracks across Croatia. On September 19, an JNA force, with tanks and heavy weapons, left Belgrade. Within days Vukovar was under siege.

On October 1, the JNA laid siege to the Croatian port of Dubrovnik - 82 per cent Croat and just 6 per cent Serb. Vukovar fell a month later. It was reduced to rubble after weeks of hand-to-hand fighting. Over 500 Croats were killed and nearly 2,000 wounded.

In November, the Bosnian Serbs, led by Radovan Karadzic, voted to secede from Bosnia and found their own state. Serb deputies had already walked out of the Bosnian Parliament and formed their own. Bosnia was now split apart in the way Croatia had been.

By the end of November, Serb forces had achieved most of their objectives. Milosevic now advocated a cease-fire and UN intervention, which would freeze current battle lines to his advantage. Borisav Jovic, Krajina Serb Interior Minister, put it this way: "At this point the war in Croatia was under control in the sense that all the Serb territories were under our control, all, that is except central Slavonia. Slobodan and I decided now was the time to get the UN troops into Croatia to protect the Serbs there. We saw the danger, when Croatia would be recognised, which we realised would happen; the JNA would be regarded as a foreign army invading another country. So we had better get the UN troops in early to protect the Serbs".

Croatia had lost a third of its territory to Serbian forces. There were thousands of dead and half a million Croatian refugees. Early in December, Tudjman visited Bonn to seek EC recognition. A week later Germany announced that if the EC did not recognise Croatia and Slovenia it would do so unilaterally.

Two weeks later Bosnia- Herzegovina and Macedonia decided to seek independence. The only other choice was being a part of Greater Serbia. On January 17 1992, the EC agreed to recognise Croatia and Slovenia but not Bosnia-Herzegovina or Macedonia.

Assault on Bosnia

On March 1 the assault on Bosnia started when Serb paramilitaries erected barricades in Sarajavo, dividing the city. Bosnia was torn apart by Serbian and Croatian forces for three years. Cities were bombed to rubble and their inhabitants starved out. Europe saw its first genocide, since world war two. Bosnian Muslims faced massacre, rape, and terror. In Srebrenica 7,000 Muslim men and boys were killed in the course of a few days. Thousands of Bosnian women were raped as part of a policy of terror. Three quarters of Bosnia?s territory was occupied by either Serbian or Croatian forces.

There are many legitimate criticisms of the Bosnian regime. But it is preposterous to suggest it was no different to those of Milosevic or Tudjman. Bosnia was by far the most multi-ethnic and multi-cultural Yugoslav Republic. Bosnia fought a war of survival in defense of a multiethnic society.

That multi-ethnicity mostly survived throughout the war. There were Serbs and Croats at every level of the Bosnian state and military. 10 per cent of the army were Serb or Croat, and there were 50,000 Serbs and 30,000 Croats in Bosnian Sarajavo throughout the siege.

The war ended in 1995 after Bosnia had at last turned the tide on the battlefield and began take back parts of its territory. Suddenly Milosevic, the architect of the conflict, became the West's negotiating
partner in Dayton Peace Treaty - which he signed on behalf of the Bosnian Serbs who he had drawn into the conflict. A divided Bosnia was turned into a UN protectorate and left to pick up the pieces.

In nearly 5 years of warfare in Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia not a single military action had taken place on the soil of Serbia. In all three cases, war had
been waged by forces receiving orders from Belgrade, aided by irregulars trained and equipped by the JNA. As a result quarter of a million died, mainly civilians, half a million wounded, and three million made refugees. All ideas of "equal responsibility" for this should be rejected. We should not equate the aggressor with the victim.

Milosevic was the prime mover of these wars, Tudjman was a second string dictator with regional ambitions and plenty of blood on his hands. Izetbegovic was the leader of the principle victim of these wars.

After the Bosnian war finished Milosevic was already developing another - his ethnic war against the Kosova Albanians. During the next four years 350,000 ethnic Albanians were driven out of the country to become refugees.

In 1998 the Kosovan Albanians mounted mass protests against Serbian rule, police troops were sent in to suppress them. In 1999 an escalating refugee crisis was used by NATO to launch an unprecedented bombing campaign against Serbia, which went on for 78 days.

The US dominated Alliance had found a role for itself in the post Soviet era, an opportunity to demonstrate the superiority of it weaponry, and as a means of extending its influence to the East.

In Britain a campaign was launched against the war in the form of The Committee for Peace in the Balkans. The role of Milosevic remained controversial The Committee itself was silent on his role. The SWP strongly opposed the bombing but underplayed Milosevic's campaign against Kosova. Socialist Action (SA) was influential in the Committee at the time, saw Milosevic as some kind of representative of actually existing socialism and described Serbia as "the chief obstacle to the capitalist break-up of Yugoslavia.

Such politics influenced the shape, and unfortunately the size, of the anti-war mobilisations - since it gave them a strong pro-Serb flavour. Most potential supporters of the movement beyond the ranks of the organised left, started from strongly opposing the ethnic cleansing of the Kosova Albanians, and stayed away once they perceived the pro-Serb bias of the movement - even those who did not see NATO as a solution.

The issue of independence for Kosova, which we advocated as the only lasting solution, was not taken up by the SWP. We argued that there were two wars taking place: one waged by Milosevic against Kosova and another against Serbia by NATO - and we were opposed to both. We called for NATO out of the region and Serbia out of Kosovo. We were part of a coordination within the Committee of those groups supporting this position.

Many on the left (particularly SA but including Tony Benn and other anti-war MPs) insisted that Yugoslavia had been broken up not by Milosevic's project but by imperialist intervention. They pointed the decision of Germany and the EC to recognise Slovenia and Croatia (the richest Republics) as independent states. Once Slovenia and Croatia had gained independence, they argued, it was "natural" for Serb minorities within Croatia and Bosnia to "rebel" and the scene was set
for war.

However, as explained above, German and EC recognition of Croatia and Slovenia came almost a year after the start of war in the region. It came a long time after the invasion of Slovenia and Croatia by Serbian forces: i.e. well after the dye was cast on the unity of Yugoslavia. Imperialism, particularly Germany, did seek to intervene, of course, but this was not decisive.

The bombing of Serbia ended when a compromise was found acceptable to both NATO and Milosevic. Key for Milosevic was that Kosova remained part of Serbia and that the multi-national force moving in to occupy Kosova was under UN (rather than NATO) control.

Previously unacceptable conditions, such as the right of NATO to access to any part of Serbia were dropped. A similar deal could probably have been struck with Milosevic without the bombing. The national rights of the Kosovars were set aside in all this and remain unresolved. Yet again the lesson has not been learned that the problem of the Balkans cannot be resolved without the right of self-determination for all the peoples of the region being respected.

Fittingly Milosevic's final undoing did not come at the hands of imperialism. In October 2000 a mass uprising of Serbian workers, a general strike, mass demonstrations and the storming of the parliament over a disputed election result, drove him and his corrupt clique from office. Six months later he was arrested and taken to The Hague.

The Hague Tribunal has been selective as to whom it pursues. Radovan Karadzic and his military chief Ratko Mladic never been brought to book for Srebrenica.

Neither have the likes of Tony Blair, Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright and General Wesley Clark - who bombarded Serbia for 78 days killing thousands of people - they also go unpunished. The use of depleted uranium and cluster bombs, the targeting of a civilian passenger train, the Chinese embassy and Radio Serbia - killing 16 media workers - seem to be of no consequence in The Hague.

The imperialist war-mongers can rest a bit easier now. Milosevic's attempt to bring them to Hague as witnesses to expose their crimes has come to an end with his passing.